New Thor: The Dark World Images Show Off Loki, Malekith And Much More

Thanks to last night's big announcement about Ben Affleck playing Batman in Zack Snyder's upcoming Man of Steel sequel, DC Comics has dominated the headlines for most of the day, but the folks over at Marvel aren't just sitting back and twiddling their thumbs. Not only have we learned some more details about James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxythis afternoon, now a full gallery of new images from Thor: The Dark World have popped up over at Empire, and you can see a bunch of them both above and below.

The first new image, which you can see above, is the best shot we've seen so far of Christopher Eccleston as Malekith the Accursed. As the leader of the Dark Elves, a race that was thought to be long extinct, Malkeith is Thor: The Dark World's primary antagonist and should be quite a serious threat to both the God of Thunder and the universe as a whole. Long-time Marvel fans will probably notice that the character's appearance is slightly different from what we usually see in the comics, as Malekith is typically drawn with half of his face badly scarred. Before the nerd rage kicks in, however...

... we have this second image, which has the villain sporting the look that comic book readers are familiar with. Obviously this means that the character will be getting his trademark look at some point during the film, but how? And who will be the one responsible?

While Malekith is going Thor: The Dark World's central villain, that doesn't mean that he will be the only bad guy in the film. Loki, the fan-favorite character played by Tom Hiddleston, is also set to return in the sequel. Following his attempted take over of Earth, the God of Mischief will start the film in an Asgardian prison, but as we saw in the most recent trailer he won't be staying there for too long.

But the film won't just be about Thor kicking evil's ass. We will also get to see further development of the superhero's relationship with the beautiful Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman. In the movie, the God of Thunder takes his lady love to Asgard and in this image we can see them sharing a moment in front of a beautiful landscape.

Lastly we have this new image, which is set back on Earth and features two familiar faces and along with a new one. Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings will be reprising their roles as Erik Selvig and Darcy Lewis, and they will be joined by a new character named Ian Boothby, played by Jonathan Howard.

Hop over to Empire to see even more new images from the film, and get ready for Thor The Dark World to hit theaters on November 8th.